sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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I have been watching Syracuse play basketball for over 40 years (God I am old). I can' t remember ever seeing a game in this time span with halves as different as we saw last night.
Let's start with the positive. What a great performance in the first half. The team remained as fired up and motivated as I have seen them all season. CJ came back from one of the worst performances of his career to have a monster game. Michael was passing the ball and running the offense brilliantly, JS was solid again and RC/BMK were holding their own inside.
Thought JB did a great job on offense, repeatedly calling isolation plays where the big guys cleared out down low to let the big SU guards post up the diminutive UL guards. MCW and BT had great success attacking the paint and the Cards were forced to bench Russ Smith for extended periods, and to do things like put Siva on Jerami Grant to try and stem the bleeding.
So what happened? I think that the team hit the wall in the second half. UL put SU under tremendous pressure all game long. That pressure, combined with having to play 4 games in 4 days, eventually broke the team, most specifically the Syracuse guards, who were not able to match the energy of the UL guards, started taking shortcuts, made mental errors, etc.
We struggled to even get a shot off for extended periods. When we had a chance to score, we missed most of our FTs. We stopped running our offense, everyone got tight and it became almost impossible to score points.
Worse still, Pitino made some adjustments that made UL's struggling offense more effective. Hancock replaced Smith and hurt us from the outside. All the turnovers made Siva a force to be reckoned with. And worst of all, UL did a great job getting the all into the high post, getting our center to cover that player (Hazell or Dieng). They put a shooter, typically Hancock in the left corner, had the other big guy slide into the vacated low post and forced the SU forward to pick a player to cover. The player left uncovered consistently had an open shot and they did a good job converting in these situations. We had no answer for this. When we kept our center at home, the Cardinal at the high post usually converted the short jumper (wish we did more of this as UL wasn't missing many dunks from the low post).
I think we would have been okay though if only JS didn't get his 4th foul early in the 2nd half. His presence forced UL to play man, opened up the middle for our guards and CJ to drive, and he is our best forward at rotating to the low post when teams try to work the high/low game against us. So it hurt us badly on both sides of the ball.
Props to UL for staging a remarkable comeback. They play a ton of people, pressure you all game long and it really pays off in a conference tournament setting, where you play teams that are playing for the 3rd or 4th day in a row. We are particularly susceptible to this given we really only play 2 guards (with the UL pressure, this was not a good game for Cooney to shine in).
So I am upset and disappointed that we didn't win given how well we played and how much we were up by. But given the unique circumstances, I understand why we collapsed and am not crushed by it. It was predictable, we discussed it possibly happening before the game and there was not much that could have been done to avoid it.
The important thing is that the team turned things around, and is playing at a high level again. There is reason for optimism and I think we are going to do well in NCAA tournament.
Before the game, we were thinking the winner of the BET was going to be put in the East, with the loser heading to the West. While I desperately wanted to see SU placed in the Eastern region, so I could easily attend the sessions, I think the easiest path to the Final Four is in the West, where schools like UConn have been so successful in the past.
So if we are indeed placed in the Western region, it might well be for the best.
A couple of other things...
The NA was sung by a woman named Anna Negron. Great performance, might be the best life version of it that I have ever heard. She is apparently a Seton Hall girl. Props to her and keep an eye out for her. She has 5 star talent.
http://www7.shu.edu/leaders/anna-negron.cfm
Great seeing so many friends in NYC. There are too many to name them all but this is one of the things that makes the BET so special to me. Let's hope the ACC and MSG are wise enough to work out a long term deal to keep the best college basketball tournament in the best venue.
Lastly, Thanks much to cto for making all things possible. Like her company, she truly brings good things to life.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Let's start with the positive. What a great performance in the first half. The team remained as fired up and motivated as I have seen them all season. CJ came back from one of the worst performances of his career to have a monster game. Michael was passing the ball and running the offense brilliantly, JS was solid again and RC/BMK were holding their own inside.
Thought JB did a great job on offense, repeatedly calling isolation plays where the big guys cleared out down low to let the big SU guards post up the diminutive UL guards. MCW and BT had great success attacking the paint and the Cards were forced to bench Russ Smith for extended periods, and to do things like put Siva on Jerami Grant to try and stem the bleeding.
So what happened? I think that the team hit the wall in the second half. UL put SU under tremendous pressure all game long. That pressure, combined with having to play 4 games in 4 days, eventually broke the team, most specifically the Syracuse guards, who were not able to match the energy of the UL guards, started taking shortcuts, made mental errors, etc.
We struggled to even get a shot off for extended periods. When we had a chance to score, we missed most of our FTs. We stopped running our offense, everyone got tight and it became almost impossible to score points.
Worse still, Pitino made some adjustments that made UL's struggling offense more effective. Hancock replaced Smith and hurt us from the outside. All the turnovers made Siva a force to be reckoned with. And worst of all, UL did a great job getting the all into the high post, getting our center to cover that player (Hazell or Dieng). They put a shooter, typically Hancock in the left corner, had the other big guy slide into the vacated low post and forced the SU forward to pick a player to cover. The player left uncovered consistently had an open shot and they did a good job converting in these situations. We had no answer for this. When we kept our center at home, the Cardinal at the high post usually converted the short jumper (wish we did more of this as UL wasn't missing many dunks from the low post).
I think we would have been okay though if only JS didn't get his 4th foul early in the 2nd half. His presence forced UL to play man, opened up the middle for our guards and CJ to drive, and he is our best forward at rotating to the low post when teams try to work the high/low game against us. So it hurt us badly on both sides of the ball.
Props to UL for staging a remarkable comeback. They play a ton of people, pressure you all game long and it really pays off in a conference tournament setting, where you play teams that are playing for the 3rd or 4th day in a row. We are particularly susceptible to this given we really only play 2 guards (with the UL pressure, this was not a good game for Cooney to shine in).
So I am upset and disappointed that we didn't win given how well we played and how much we were up by. But given the unique circumstances, I understand why we collapsed and am not crushed by it. It was predictable, we discussed it possibly happening before the game and there was not much that could have been done to avoid it.
The important thing is that the team turned things around, and is playing at a high level again. There is reason for optimism and I think we are going to do well in NCAA tournament.
Before the game, we were thinking the winner of the BET was going to be put in the East, with the loser heading to the West. While I desperately wanted to see SU placed in the Eastern region, so I could easily attend the sessions, I think the easiest path to the Final Four is in the West, where schools like UConn have been so successful in the past.
So if we are indeed placed in the Western region, it might well be for the best.
A couple of other things...
The NA was sung by a woman named Anna Negron. Great performance, might be the best life version of it that I have ever heard. She is apparently a Seton Hall girl. Props to her and keep an eye out for her. She has 5 star talent.
http://www7.shu.edu/leaders/anna-negron.cfm
Great seeing so many friends in NYC. There are too many to name them all but this is one of the things that makes the BET so special to me. Let's hope the ACC and MSG are wise enough to work out a long term deal to keep the best college basketball tournament in the best venue.
Lastly, Thanks much to cto for making all things possible. Like her company, she truly brings good things to life.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
